Life on the Edge
by Pipsqueak
Summary: The infamous shipyard scene from Phase-3 Claire's POV. Companion to "Catwalk."


Title: Life on the Edge Author: Pipsqueak119 Rating: R Spoilers: TPoC Disclaimer: The Invisible Man belongs to Stu Segall and SciFi. 'nuff said. Summary: The infamous shipyard scene from Phase-3 Claire's POV  
  
A/N: The second half of my answer to a TPoC missing scene challenge. It's smut as only I can write it -- completely over intellectualized. Companion piece to "Catwalk"; alternately titled, "Claire's Revenge." (Alright, Claire, are you happy now? Can I finally go to sleep? g)  
  
LIFE ON THE EDGE  
  
She was hanging by a thread, both literally and figuratively. As she clung to the rusted railing of the catwalk, she wondered which fall would be worse -- the one that would send her hurtling down to her death or the one that would send her spiraling into complete madness. Perhaps that point was moot, she thought idly. After all, if she hadn't already been mad, hadn't been taunting the old man, she might never have tripped over the edge in the first place. Oh, well, 'life on the edge and all that,' she'd mocked. Perhaps they'd engrave it on her tombstone.  
  
The old man was stronger than he looked, however. His plaque-encrusted ticker had held out long enough for him to haul her back to safety. He wasn't pleased about it though. Oh, no, he'd yelled at her, slapped her, knocked her down. She began meticulously plotting his death.  
  
Before she had a chance to finish her plotting something cold and unseen rushed past her. Out of nowhere she heard a voice: "I guess chivalry really is dead." Then the old man was assaulted by the thin air. Punched and buffeted and finally tossed over the edge of the catwalk. No last- minute, second-chance save for him. Oh, no. He fell to the ground with a solid thud, most likely the sound of every bone in his body breaking simultaneously.  
  
She heard a delicate chiming sound as silvery flakes flew into the wind, revealing a tall, slender silhouette silently staring down at the old man's body. Ah, so it was him.  
  
The wolf. The wolf was there. The wolf had pushed the old man to his death. She snorted, amused to picture herself dressed as red-riding hood. Only this wolf, her wolf, hadn't devoured her. Instead he'd saved her, become her red-eyed knight in shining armor. 'Don't sing at the dining table,' her mother had warned her, 'or you'll fall in love with a madman.' Defiantly she had continued to sing during her childhood meals. She fell into a fit of giggles thinking how right her mother had been.  
  
He turned, eyes narrowed. "What the hell are you laughing at?" She could see he was annoyed ... and maybe something else.  
  
Without thinking she blurted out the truth, "You're mad,' and laughed again.  
  
"You're not so stable yourself there, sister," he shot back, stepping closer. And yes, there definitely was something else beginning to light his eyes. Something indefinable, definitely still dangerous, but ... interested. The wolf might still devour her ... or perhaps she might devour him. She grinned broadly as she contemplated the idea, then wider still. Perhaps they might both devour each other. That thought sent the most exquisite shockwaves rocketing through her body.  
  
"I know. And I know I should be afraid of you, but I'm not." And it was true. She wasn't afraid of him, not any more, not when they were both mad. No, it was only their sanity, their bloody boring morality that scared her, that boxed them both in till they could no longer breath. Up here, in the air, in their madness, they were free. Free to do all the things they'd only dreamed about.  
  
As if sensing her thoughts, he bent down, ducked his shaggy wolf's head, smiled his sly wolf's smile. "Really?"  
  
She watched him as he tucked his rangy body down, hunched his shoulders so he could bring his face closer to hers. She'd seen his body, the wolf's body. She was, after all, his doctor. How many times had she had her hands on him -- sometimes healing, sometimes hurting -- as he sat in that God-awful chair in the darkness of her Keep? How long had the wolf been her Kept? Over a year. For over a year now, she had been the wolf's Keeper. For over a year she had respected the sanctity of that relationship and her responsibility to him.  
  
And all the while some part of her had secretly wondered what it would be like to know that beautiful body not as a doctor, not as his Keeper, but as a woman. To feel his lean, corded frame writhe with pleasure as she traced every luscious detail with fingers and tongue. The fact that she had known the wolf's brother intimately had both held her back and, paradoxically, fed her perverse desire for him.  
  
But how did one talk to a wolf, or, perhaps more to the point, mate with one? She doubted words alone would gentle him. No, she'd spent a lifetime hiding behind words; now she was free to act. She felt suddenly elemental. No longer just observing nature, just studying it, but occupying an integral part of it. She ached to be at its center, just she and he, doing lovely, wicked things to each other.  
  
"You just saved my life." She breathed, smiled, trying to draw him closer. "Do you know how that makes me feel?"  
  
He grinned and came to her. She could see his sharp, white wolf's teeth. "Ah, why don't you tell me?"  
  
Oh, she'd do more than just tell him. She grabbed him, tugged him closer, placed his hand on her breast in an open, animal invitation to primal play. "You feel that?"  
  
She felt his skilled wolf's fingers stroke her skin. "Mmmmhmmmm," he breathed.  
  
"My heart rate's elevated, my skin's flushed, my breathing is shallow and rapid." She detailed her heated desire to him with cool rationality.  
  
"I don't know. Sounds like good old-fashioned fear to me." She felt him drop his fingertips, running them stealthily across her nipple like the thief that he was. She leaned in to his touch to reassure him, to let him know that he didn't need to steal what was freely offered. She heard his breath catch, then deepen as he began to fully understand the nature of their game.  
  
"Oh, well, yes, true. My adrenal gland is pumping overtime," she teased him. She felt his hand envelope her breast and arched into his touch, sweeter than even she had dreamed. "That's not the only gland giving off heavy secretions."  
  
They were close now. Close to each other, close to making their desires reality. For a moment she couldn't believe it, couldn't believe she'd tamed the wolf in his madness. Then she heard a throaty laugh escape him as he murmured, "I love it when you talk doctor."  
  
But she was through talking, through thinking. She was all motion now, the drive for physical stimulation overtaking her. She reached out, grabbed his wild wolf's hair and dragged his mouth down for a feral kiss. He grabbed her ass, stroked her in the most sensitive of places. Moaning and sighing, sucking and licking, they bruised their lips together, ran their hands over each other, wallowed in glorious sensation.  
  
Too soon he pulled away. Confused, she tried to pull him back to her mouth, but he shook her hands off him. Hungry still, she amused herself by sucking at the hollow of his neck. The taste of his skin was wonderful, spicy-sweet with a hint of muskiness which, even in her maddened state she couldn't help but wonder, might be a result of the gland. "Down," he gasped out. She looked up at him, saw his wolf's mind working in his red eyes, understood. "Down," she agreed.  
  
They separated and on shaky legs made their way down the stairs. He followed her so closely, she could feel the heat of his body against her back. Every few steps he tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her back for another open-mouthed kiss. It was a heady cocktail, the pain and the pleasure, but then she hadn't really expected any less from the wolf.  
  
When they reached the ground, she surprised him. Giggling, she whirled, reaching around to turn the tables and grab his ass. He laughed out loud, wrapped his arms around her, crushed her to his chest. One more wild kiss and then they were moving. Moving their hands, their mouths, their lips, their tongues over each other. Moving themselves over to a very innocent looking pile of canvas tarps.  
  
He backed her up to the tarps. Her hands roamed over his body, one finally resting on what she had in her raging desire been seeking. She put a wonton hand on his swollen member, the lewdness of her gesture shocking and enthralling her simultaneously. "Down," he said again. "Down," she echoed, falling backwards, pulling him with her by his hips.  
  
The landed together in a mimicry of physical completion. As one, they began to ape the act itself through their clothes. The wolf bent down, bit the side of her neck and she felt the foreshadowing of an orgasm shudder through her. She growled and tugged his jacket off his shoulders, forcing him to release her momentarily.  
  
While he was freeing his arms, she pulled his T-shirt up and finally did what she had dreamed of so many times as he sat in that chair. She ran her hands over his fabulous torso, marking the tanned skin with feather-light scratches. Finally she lowered her lips to his chest, first licking at his flat, taunt nipples, then nipping at them, laughing as she watched them grow erect.  
  
This maddened the wolf, if one could be maddened in his madness. He tore away his shirt and rolled them both over. She landed on top of him, shrieking, reveling in his playfulness. She had a surprise for him as well.  
  
She smiled archly, reached out and pulled one of the tarps over them. Leaning down, she put her mouth to his ear and whispered, "Wouldn't want to get caught, now would we?" She felt him turn his head, lightly lick her ear, then smile against it, "No, no, that would be bad."  
  
Oh, yes, that would be bad. But then again so was she, as bad as she'd ever hoped to be. She basked in her badness as she straddled the wolf's hips, kissing her way over his abdomen up to his jaw, along the broad planes of his shoulders. 'So much for fishing off the company pier,' she thought with a giggle; she'd fallen in head first. She heard him cry out, encouraging her, "Wooohooohooo. Come on, come get it."  
  
Suddenly she felt a cool, liquid chill creep over her body. She gasped, startled, as her world turned an eerie, glowing grey. Ah, the trickster; he'd surprised her with the gland. She'd make him pay, take it out on him in ecstasy. But he was quicker still. She felt his hands kneading her naked breasts through the silk of her shirt, the pads of his delectable fingers squeezing her nipples. She moaned, silently begging him to remove the thin obstruction, but he fumbled the buttons in his excitement. Finally he simply pulled her shirt down and glided his mouth over her shoulders with soft, ticklish kisses. She giggled, then shrieked in surprise again as the Quicksilver flaked away and the wolf enthusiastically slapped her ass.  
  
And once again they were lost in each other, reaching, grasping, kissing, tugging. Then the light invaded their sanctum and she felt another set of hands pulling at her. Not the elegant, long-fingered hands of the wolf, but strong hands nonetheless. Capable hands.  
  
She heard another woman's voice, worried about a rival. She tightened her grip on the wolf. "Aw, don't they make a cute couple."  
  
There was a sweet male voice yelling at the wolf, at her, a mixture of pain and confusion staining her delight. Ah, it was the bull. He didn't understand, didn't know there was more of her in her madness, enough to satisfy both the wolf and he.  
  
She heard the wolf try and explain. "C'mon, Hobbsey. Birds do it; bees do it ..."  
  
She felt the bull's hands continue to pry her away from the wolf. Of course, he wouldn't listen to the wolf, but he'd listen to her. He always listened to her. "Even scien-teests do it," she sang to the bull. For one glorious moment she pictured herself copulating with both the wolf and the bull in fevered abandon, acting out some bizarre, erotic retelling of Aesop's fables.  
  
The wolf laughed as though he too had shared her vision, beckoning her to return to him, "C'mere." She dove back at the wolf's mouth, hoping the bull would follow her into their frenzied asylum.  
  
But the bull only yelled louder and pulled harder at her, finally wresting her from the wolf's grasp. He stood between she and the wolf, straightening her blouse, pleading with her. She looked over his shoulder, back to where the wolf knelt. Watched as the wolf crawled over to where the bull separated them.  
  
"Hey, hey," the wolf cried. She tried to go to him, but the bull stopped her. "Hey, hey," the wolf repeated. Still the bull wouldn't let her go. The wolf grabbed at the bull's shoulder to get his attention. "Back off, monkey boy," the wolf shouted, warning the bull and marking his territory.  
  
The bull wouldn't leave. Instead he raised his fist to strike the wolf. She watched with malicious excitement, enthralled to imagine that two such magnificent beasts might war over her. The war never came though. Instead, the other woman, the rival, slid a needle into the wolf's neck. No, that was wrong. Only she was allowed to violate the wolf in such a manner. But the rival pushed the plunger and the wolf fell.  
  
She was alone, then, in her wickedness, no wolf to join her in her naughty games. Yet the bull was still there, by her side -- strong, steady, loyal. Ah, yes, the bull ... .  
  
### Title: Life on the Edge Author: Pipsqueak119 Rating: R Spoilers: TPoC Disclaimer: The Invisible Man belongs to Stu Segall and SciFi. 'nuff said. Summary: The infamous shipyard scene from Phase-3 Claire's POV  
  
A/N: The second half of my answer to a TPoC missing scene challenge. It's smut as only I can write it -- completely over intellectualized. Companion piece to "Catwalk"; alternately titled, "Claire's Revenge." (Alright, Claire, are you happy now? Can I finally go to sleep? g)  
  
LIFE ON THE EDGE  
  
She was hanging by a thread, both literally and figuratively. As she clung to the rusted railing of the catwalk, she wondered which would fall would be worse -- the one that would send her hurtling down to her death or the one that would send her spiraling into complete madness. Perhaps that point was moot, she thought idly. After all, if she hadn't already been mad, hadn't been taunting the old man, she might never have tripped over the edge in the first place. Oh, well, 'life on the edge and all that,' she'd mocked. Perhaps they'd engrave it on her tombstone.  
  
The old man was stronger than he looked, however. His plaque-encrusted ticker had held out long enough for him to haul her back to safety. He wasn't pleased about it though. Oh, no, he'd yelled at her, slapped her, knocked her down. She began meticulously plotting his death.  
  
Before she had a chance to finish her plotting something cold and unseen rushed past her. Out of nowhere she heard a voice: ""I guess chivalry really is dead." Then the old man was assaulted by the thin air. Punched and buffeted and finally tossed over the edge of the catwalk. No last- minute, second-chance save for him. Oh, no. He fell to the ground with a solid thud, most likely the sound of every bone in his body breaking simultaneously.  
  
She heard a delicate chiming sound as silvery flakes flew into the wind, revealing a tall, slender silhouette silently staring down at the old man's body. Ah, so it was him.  
  
The wolf. The wolf was there. The wolf had pushed the old man to his death. She snorted, amused to picture herself dressed as red-riding hood. Only this wolf, her wolf, hadn't devoured her. Instead he'd saved her, become her red-eyed knight in shining armor. 'Don't sing at the dining table,' her mother had warned her, 'or you'll fall in love with a madman.' Defiantly she had continued to sing during her childhood meals. She fell into a fit of giggles thinking how right her mother had been.  
  
He turned, eyes narrowed. "What the hell are you laughing at?" She could see he was annoyed .and maybe something else.  
  
Without thinking she blurted out the truth, "You're mad,' and laughed again.  
  
"You're not so stable yourself there, sister," he shot back, stepping closer. And yes, there definitely was something else beginning to light his eyes. Something indefinable, definitely still dangerous, but . interested. The wolf might still devour her . or perhaps she might devour him. She grinned broadly as she contemplated the idea, then wider still. Perhaps they might both devour each other. That thought sent the most exquisite shockwaves rocketing through her body.  
  
"I know. And I know I should be afraid of you, but I'm not." And it was true. She wasn't afraid of him, not any more, not when they were both mad. No, it was only their sanity, their bloody boring morality that scared her, that boxed them both in till they could no longer breath. Up here, in the air, in their madness, they were free. Free to do all the things they'd only dreamed about.  
  
As if sensing her thoughts, he bent down, ducked his shaggy wolf's head, smiled his sly wolf's smile. "Really?"  
  
She watched him as he tucked his rangy body down, hunched his shoulders so he could bring his face closer to hers. She'd seen his body, the wolf's body. She was, after all, his doctor. How many times had she had her hands on him -- sometimes healing, sometimes hurting -- as he sat in that God-awful chair in the darkness of her Keep? How long had the wolf been her Kept? Over a year. For over a year now, she had been the wolf's Keeper. For over a year she had respected the sanctity of that relationship and her responsibility to him.  
  
And all the while some part of her had secretly wondered what it would be like to know that beautiful body not as a doctor, not as his Keeper, but as a woman. To feel his lean, corded frame writhe with pleasure as she traced every luscious detail with fingers and tongue. The fact that she had known the wolf's brother intimately had both held her back and, paradoxically, fed her perverse desire for him.  
  
But how did one talk to a wolf, or, perhaps more to the point, mate with one? She doubted words alone would gentle him. No, she'd spent a lifetime hiding behind words; now she was free to act. She felt suddenly elemental. No longer just observing nature, just studying it, but occupying an integral part of it. She ached to be at its center, just she and he, doing lovely, wicked things to each other.  
  
"You just saved my life." She breathed, smiled, trying to draw him closer. "Do you know how that makes me feel?"  
  
He grinned and came to her. She could see his sharp, white wolf's teeth. "Ah, why don't you tell me?"  
  
Oh, she'd do more than just tell him. She grabbed him, tugged him closer, placed his hand on her breast in an open, animal invitation to primal play. "You feel that?"  
  
She felt his skilled wolf's fingers stroke her skin. "Mmmmhmmmm," he breathed.  
  
"My heart rate's elevated, my skin's flushed, my breathing is shallow and rapid." She detailed her heated desire to him with cool rationality.  
  
"I don't know. Sounds like good old-fashioned fear to me." She felt him drop his fingertips, running them stealthily across her nipple like the thief that he was. She leaned in to his touch to reassure him, to let him know that he didn't need to steal what was freely offered. She heard his breath catch, then deepen as he began to fully understand the nature of their game.  
  
"Oh, well, yes, true. My adrenal gland is pumping overtime," she teased him. She felt his hand envelope her breast and arched into his touch, sweeter than even she had dreamed. "That's not the only gland giving off heavy secretions."  
  
They were close now. Close to each other, close to making their desires reality. For a moment she couldn't believe it, couldn't believe she'd tamed the wolf in his madness. Then she heard a throaty laugh escape him as he murmured, "I love it when you talk doctor."  
  
But she was through talking, through thinking. She was all motion now, the drive for physical stimulation overtaking her. She reached out, grabbed his wild wolf's hair and dragged his mouth down for a feral kiss. He grabbed her ass, stroked her in the most sensitive of places. Moaning and sighing, sucking and licking, they bruised their lips together, ran their hands over each other, wallowed in glorious sensation.  
  
Too soon he pulled away. Confused, she tried to pull him back to her mouth, but he shook her hands off him. Hungry still, she amused herself by sucking at the hollow of his neck. The taste of his skin was wonderful, spicy-sweet with a hint of muskiness which, even in her maddened state she couldn't help but wonder, might be a result of the gland. "Down," he gasped out. She looked up at him, saw his wolf's mind working in his red eyes, understood. "Down," she agreed.  
  
They separated and on shaky legs made their way down the stairs. He followed her so closely, she could feel the heat of his body against her back. Every few steps he tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her back for another open-mouthed kiss. It was a heady cocktail, the pain and the pleasure, but then she hadn't really expected any less from the wolf.  
  
When they reached the ground, she surprised him. Giggling, she whirled, reaching around to turn the tables and grab his ass. He laughed out loud, wrapped his arms around her, crushed her to his chest. One more wild kiss and then they were moving. Moving their hands, their mouths, their lips, their tongues over each other. Moving themselves over to a very innocent looking pile of canvas tarps.  
  
He backed her up to the tarps. Her hands roamed over his body, one finally resting on what she had in her raging desire been seeking. She put a wonton hand on his swollen member, the lewdness of her gesture shocking and enthralling her simultaneously. "Down," he said again. "Down," she echoed, falling backwards, pulling him with her by his hips.  
  
The landed together in a mimicry of physical completion. As one, they began to ape the act itself through their clothes. The wolf bent down, bit the side of her neck and she felt the foreshadowing of an orgasm shudder through her. She growled and tugged his jacket off his shoulders, forcing him to release her momentarily.  
  
While he was freeing his arms, she pulled his T-shirt up and finally did what she had dreamed of so many times as he sat in that chair. She ran her hands over his fabulous torso, marking the tanned skin with feather-light scratches. Finally she lowered her lips to his chest, first licking at his flat, taunt nipples, then nipping at them, laughing as she watched them grow erect.  
  
This maddened the wolf, if one could be maddened in his madness. He tore away his shirt and rolled them both over. She landed on top of him, shrieking, reveling in his playfulness. She had a surprise for him as well.  
  
She smiled archly, reached out and pulled one of the tarps over them. Leaning down, she put her mouth to his ear and whispered, "Wouldn't want to get caught, now would we?" She felt him turn his head, lightly lick her ear, then smile against it, "No, no, that would be bad."  
  
Oh, yes, that would be bad. But then again so was she, as bad as she'd ever hoped to be. She basked in her badness as she straddled the wolf's hips, kissing her way over his abdomen up to his jaw, along the broad planes of his shoulders. 'So much for fishing off the company pier,' she thought with a giggle; she'd fallen in head first. She heard him cry out, encouraging her, "Wooohooohooo. Come on, come get it."  
  
Suddenly she felt a cool, liquid chill creep over her body. She gasped, startled, as her world turned an eerie, glowing grey. Ah, the trickster; he'd surprised her with the gland. She'd make him pay, take it out on him in ecstasy. But he was quicker still. She felt his hands kneading her naked breasts through the silk of her shirt, the pads of his delectable fingers squeezing her nipples. She moaned, silently begging him to remove the thin obstruction, but he fumbled the buttons in his excitement. Finally he simply pulled her shirt down and glided his mouth over her shoulders with soft, ticklish kisses. She giggled, then shrieked in surprise again as the Quicksilver flaked away and the wolf enthusiastically slapped her ass.  
  
And once again they were lost in each other, reaching, grasping, kissing, tugging. Then the light invaded their sanctum and she felt another set of hands pulling at her. Not the elegant, long-fingered hands of the wolf, but strong hands nonetheless. Capable hands.  
  
She heard another woman's voice, worried about a rival. She tightened her grip on the wolf. "Aw, don't they make a cute couple."  
  
There was a sweet male voice yelling at the wolf, at her, a mixture of pain and confusion staining her delight. Ah, it was the bull. He didn't understand, didn't know there was more of her in her madness, enough to satisfy both the wolf and he.  
  
She heard the wolf try and explain. "C'mon, Hobbsey. Birds do it; bees do it ..."  
  
She felt the bull's hands continue to pry her away from the wolf. Of course, he wouldn't listen to the wolf, but he'd listen to her. He always listened to her. "Even scien-teests do it," she sang to the bull. For one glorious moment she pictured herself copulating with both the wolf and the bull in fevered abandon, acting out some bizarre, erotic retelling of Aesop's fables.  
  
The wolf laughed as though he too had shared her vision, beckoning her to return to him, "C'mere." She dove back at the wolf's mouth, hoping the bull would follow her into their frenzied asylum.  
  
But the bull only yelled louder and pulled harder at her, finally wresting her from the wolf's grasp. He stood between she and the wolf, straightening her blouse, pleading with her. She looked over his shoulder, back to where the wolf knelt. Watched as the wolf crawled over to where the bull separated them.  
  
"Hey, hey," the wolf cried. She tried to go to him, but the bull stopped her. "Hey, hey," the wolf repeated. Still the bull wouldn't let her go. The wolf grabbed at the bull's shoulder to get his attention. "Back off, monkey boy," the wolf shouted, warning the bull and marking his territory.  
  
The bull wouldn't leave. Instead he raised his fist to strike the wolf. She watched with malicious excitement, enthralled to imagine that two such magnificent beasts might war over her. The war never came though. Instead, the other woman, the rival, slid a needle into the wolf's neck. No, that was wrong. Only she was allowed to violate the wolf in such a manner. But the rival pushed the plunger and the wolf fell.  
  
She was alone, then, in her wickedness, no wolf to join her in her naughty games. Yet the bull was still there, by her side -- strong, steady, loyal. Ah, yes, the bull ... .  
  
### 


End file.
